Song Review: BTS – Epilogue: Young Forever

BTS’ The Most Beautiful Moment In Life project has been such a triumph on all levels, and now they’re taking a victory lap of sorts by releasing the trilogy’s finale. The actual album (and presumed title track) won’t be released until early May, but with Young Forever, they’ve surprised us with a taster of what’s to come.

Whether this is a complete song, a teaser, or an extended intro is up for debate, but Young Forever definitely succeeds at distilling the group’s most successful elements into one rousing piece of music. It seems a stretch to wax nostalgic about songs that only came out a year ago, but the combination of the chorused vocals and music video clips provided here gives songs like I Need U and Run even more emotional heft than they had already brought to the table.

Reviewing Young Forever as a song is an odd task. It forgoes a traditional verse/chorus structure for something more aligned with album intros or outros. I’m going to assume that it’ll either be first or last in the album’s running order, and will work tremendously well in either of those capacities. Despite running the length of a normal kpop single, the song feels shorter. This is likely due to the fact that it’s essentially divided into thirds. First, we get a sing-songy rap “verse,” which gradually grows more melodic before catapulting into the track’s lead refrain. This vocal-heavy segment works particularly well, acting as a dramatic punch that then slows and simplifies into a spare, sing-along finale. It leaves you wanting more, but in an intriguing, emotionally affecting way. Had it been teased out into a fuller song format, I think I’d rate it even higher. As it stands, my anticipation for the comeback song is about as high as it can get.